In Test, my barb has 250 Warding. Form SWAN and TURTLE taught 6 tics of Warding, but then stopped teaching.

Also, any chance whirlwind could teach Expertise?

>Never saw any more "tics" beyond the initial 3

This sounds like the intended functionality after the change at the end of December. See the links below. The first will only work in Threaded View, the second in Legacy View.

http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Dragon%20Realms%203.1%20Test/Barbarians/thread/1613172?get_newest=true#
http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Dragon%20Realms%203.1%20Test/Barbarians/view/48

Javac
JGM - Crafting Team

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net or Message Board Supervisor Annwyl at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

Yeah, I think meditate research is going to need a bit of kajiggering if it's going to be useful as a training tool. Otherwise, xp from abilities and such may need a look.

Forms only teach one large chunk after they have finished ramping up. There is then a few minutes of cooldown before you can learn from it again. You just need to experiment and learn how best to learn from the system. It is still ridiculously easy to mind lock skills if you are willing to dump IF into it.

I have been able to to mind lock IF and Augmentation in just a few minutes with minimal effort from circle 10-200. The trade-off is you tank your IF and spend the next 15 minutes recovering it (out of combat) or 5 minutes (in combat). Warding is a bit harder, but not that much if you have sufficient abilities to keep it moving. I probably need to nerf IF/Aug and buff Warding a bit.... but geesh it really isn't that difficult.


Meditate Power
from start eagle
Form start bear
Form start wolverine
form start swan
meditate research serenity
meditate bastion
meditate focus
meditate power

(Wait 30 seconds for the exp to catch up)

Now you run out of IF and your Forms all come to a stop.


SKILL: Rank/Percent towards next rank/Amount learning/Mindstate Fraction
Inner Fire: 297 15% mind lock (34/34) Augmentation: 285 86% mind lock (34/34)
Warding: 234 71% concentrating (9/34)


Warding suffered a bit because I only used Swan, Bastion and the Research Serenity on it. Swapping out Turtle Form, Berserk Tenacity, or one of the other Warding skills would have seen it rise to 12/34 or 15/34 - possibly at the expense of a little IF/Aug. I could also just wait a few minutes and cycle swan and turtle and boom, 6-7 more levels of skill gain.

In combat it is easy to keep your abilities moving. Much harder to mind lock if you want to keep Forms/Berserks up, but it is not impossible. Periodically check your IF with meditate power and IF skill will ML in no time. Periodically drop a Berserk, and watch the numbers tick up. Meditate Research also works in combat - and is a good way to keep Warding or Debilitation moving if you otherwise have difficulty.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

First, let me preface this post by saying I do not main a barbarian and I am just concerned about something in your posts Kodius so I thought I would ask.

You mention meditate research being usable in combat and then mention debilitation, so I have a few questions.

Isn't meditate research supposed to be the barbarian analogue of magic user research?

Why is it that meditate research is usable in combat while magic user research prohibits almost everything?

And my biggest and most important question, how in any way is it justified that research can train debilitation? Debilitation and Targeted magic require a skill contest against a hostile creature/monster/etc for any other guild to train and your post implies, at least to me, that barbarians can train debilitation both outside of combat and without requiring a class. I'm sure its not unknown to you that the magic user research does not teach either of the magic skills that require combat (Target/Debil) and that there is no intention to allow either of those skills to be taught outside of combat via research for magic users. At least, that is my understanding of research as it was proposed on the forums. If all of my assumptions above are correct, then how is it fair or justified that barbarians would be able to train debilitation outside of combat contests or classes?

Perhaps Im misunderstanding the difference between barbarian research and MU research and there is a balance point, but just reading through this forum I did not see it. Ill be happy to explain my concerns further if its not obvious why I think this isn't fair or balanced. Please explain if you read this and find the time, thanks.

Thanks Kod! I figured it out some yesterday. Looks workable for sure. I love the work with the Maneuvers, and saw that you have over 50 planned? Very nice.

Unless of course you pick up the specialty that lets you meditate in combat, and/or fire up and immediately drop berserks. Or fire up and drop a little later some forms. I suppose it's not that bad...

Ah, gotcha. Well, I can't speak for a GM, but our abilities are like cyclicates (however, we aren't gaining exp. like a cyclicate), that you'd have to turn off and on to get exp from and the turning off and on burns through IF. I guess, instead of giving us the same exp. pattern of Cylcicates they gave us this.

>>I'm just hoping that in 3.1 their magic is still not so overpowering, so I can pop in there once in awhile to gather a few boxes. By the way, I still can't skin mages. I'd like to be able to skin mages. Just 'cause. <#1 used to be skinnable, and #2, it suits her character to skin mages> Particularly since someday I'd like to fight dancers down there, and its the same issue with their magic. :-)

Well, hoping means it might not happen. I can only test so much, and we need players to try and give us their feedback.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>>Out of curiosity, doesn't this seem really counter intuitive to you Kodius?

It is no different than a mage trying to ML in combat. They would have to spam abilities that are not-useful for killing things to keep their skills MLd.

I almost wish we'd make it so skills could not ordinarily reach mind lock. It is not as useful a metric of how well you train now that skills all drain uniformly. If you are in combat and have your skills above 2/34, you are learning as best as the guy sitting at 34/34. It is extremely simple for all magic/supernatural users to keep those at 2/34 or higher, all of the time, 24/7, in or out of combat.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

<<Well, hoping means it might not happen. I can only test so much, and we need players to try and give us their feedback. >>

DRTEST:
>stat full
Brave Adventurers Questing:
Barzella

Active Players: 1
Active Mentors: 0

Staff on duty:

Chatter[Barzella] anyone here that can copy me over from plat?


crickets chirp.

more crickets chirp

>quit






<<If I can't cast thunderclap, you can't summon the dark lord of the abyss to devour the flesh of the innocent>>

>>more crickets chirp

It's almost like GMs might not be available to respond to a very technical request on a weekday morning...

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>and was hoping FORMs would get a similar treatment.

I dropped everything and coded up the meditate research ability was coded up specifically to address this complaint, and have no further ideas on how to improve at this time.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>>I dropped everything and coded up the meditate research ability was coded up specifically to address this complaint, and have no further ideas on how to improve at this time.

This comment goes out to all experience.

does anyone else find it completely silly that experience target/debil/aug etc was nerfed so much that a whole new (completely unnecessary) line of commands were created to train those skills that don't even use the abilities?

I mean this is the most backwards thing I have ever heard of. It's almost like imagining up extra work for yourself for job security or something.

This is not directed at YOU Kodius, it's directed at the entire SIMU team's line of thought here.


Codiax.
Vote: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

Why not instead of the "research" thing do to Forms what was essentialy done to Cyclic spells.

Start Form X. Pulse 10 to 15 times. Learning starts slow ramps up than back down towars last pulse. Stop learning after 10 to 15 pulses (pick a number). CD timer on restarting that form of 2 to 5 min. Start Form after CD timer repeat
= proft!

Instead we get this complicated convoluted system. Of course the "trolls" are going to come out in force after this comment and say "its just 1 or 3 lines on your script its not like its hard".....

<<I mean this is the most backwards thing I have ever heard of. It's almost like imagining up extra work for yourself for job security or something.>>

Admittedly I haven't hit test much to try the new stuff out, but this entire explanation seems a little strange. So you want us to put up like 10 abilities and tank IF just to ML stuff? I don't get it. I think the whole cyclic/form exp was blown out of proportion and I kind of hate this "solution" to the problem, but hey I just play I don't make these kind of calls.

Before anyone gets all upset about this, I do appreciate the development and the work going into DR, and all the work the GMs do, just voicing a concern. From what I've seen with some of the rest of the 3.1 stuff it looks pretty cool.

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Don't forget to vote for dragonrealms:

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

<<There is this "witch hunt" against easy EXP gains in general.>>

I think the funny part of that is at the end of the day this ends up favoring the hardcore players and hurting the casual gamers.

put a cylclic up and lock some magics while you hang out at the bin, or do a complicated series of casts while you try to also hang out at the bin. The hardcore gamers are gonna have it all locked all the time anyway. Why not make it easier for the casual gamers to keep pace?

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Don't forget to vote for dragonrealms:

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

>>If we've learned anything from Hum style exp rewards, its that they are bad for game balance. If exp rewards are so high or so easy that there is little difference between your typical 'hardcode' and 'casual' player skill levels, that tells me there is clearly a problem.

Don't think anyone is asking for easy, free experience. But if you are creating a bandaid type of system on top of another system just to learn faster, then clearly there is a problem too.

Existing abilities can be balanced to take ~30 minutes to lock a skill without bandaids. First question before doing something like this is ask, "Does creating this enhance a users experience playing this game". And if the answer is No, rethink another solution.


Codiax.
Vote: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

>Existing abilities can be balanced to take ~30 minutes to lock a skill without bandaids.

The new paradigm for exp seems to be Effort=Reward, which I don't think is a wrong way to go. No matter how you balance it, if you can stay over 2/34 in a skill with extremely minimal effort/time investment then that's basically free exp. This is why we are seeing Cyclics, Barb, and Thief abilities, which are generally Fire and Forget once started, having the bulk of their exp rewards being moved over to a RT Investment=Exp method. So to me its less of a bandaid and more an intentional design decision, though one I know will be unpopular.

>First question before doing something like this is ask, "Does creating this enhance a users experience playing this game". And if the answer is No, rethink another solution.

Game balance is a thankless job, no one likes their abilities being weakened or exp lowered even if its in the best interest of the game as a whole. The good news is that these changes are still in the testing phase, so it very possible they are not were they need to be. We need less knee jerk reactions (not an accusation, just a general observation) and more hard test data so Kodius/other involved GMs can make tweaks as need.

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

Every guild operating under the current cyclic system would be balanced across the board. I don't recall an uproar against cyclics from the majority of the playerbase.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade